Oh-Mi-God, a feller dares to take a few hours sleep and spend the day fixing the local carillon and comes home to find everyone talking about him! Still, as Mr Wilde pointed out, “There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”.
So, let’s see. Hmmm, this could take a little while, so you might want to go off and pour yourself a Jamo’s, in honour of the Saint, whose birthday is tomorrow. I’m going to. Now, where were we …
Eilam mentioned the Rudall Improved. There’s a story here. I wanted to make a sort of “ultimate Rudall”, so I picked the largest bore, largest hole Rudall I could find anywhere. Because the original was a fairly early one, it had the typical rather ghastly flat foot, and also a scale that worked best at pitches around 430 (domestic pitch at the time). So I had to bring the pitch of the foot notes up very considerably, and rescale the flute to modern pitch in general. Obviously one can hardly call it a Rudall copy after all that, but neither can one honestly claim it as your own work. So “Rudall Improved” seemed a good tag.
About the same time, I was doing a lot of research into Nicholson, his Improved flute and the makers (including Rudall & Rose) that immediately succeeded him. I soon realised my folly - Nicholson had ushered in the Improved period - lots of makers at the time were styling their flutes Improved - so the flute I had based my work on was Improved before I’d even got to it. What I had done was to bump this Rudall into the next period - the Perfected period ushered in by Pratten. In this period, flat foot was eliminated, and the flute was rescaled for higher pitches. Hey, that sounds like me! So, at the risk of confusing the flute-buying public (and future historians) totally, I renamed the RI the RP.
And to set all that in context, I offer three Rudall based flutes:
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the Rudall Perfected - the kind of flute Rudalls might have offered post Pratten if they didn’t have their mind on Boehm flutes; a really big Rudall,
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the Rudall 5088 - a more typical Rudall flute from the Improved era, and
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my Rudall Refined, based on the small hole Rudall which seemed so popular.
Now, who’s next …
Doc asks about my waiting list. It had got very bad - well over two years for keyed flutes, and I found I really wasn’t enjoying it. I tend to spend a lot of time with the player trying to determine what is going to suit them best. After all that, I have a strong impulse to get on and build the flute. It’s no fun putting it on the backburner for two years, then wondering how on earth we came to this set of conclusions. So, I’ve put a lot of effort over the last two years into improving my facilities, refining my processes, etc etc with an aim to reducing the waiting list to manageable proportions. Paradoxically, my new process actually takes a bit longer to make a flute (in overall weeks), but the improved tooling means I spend less time on it, so it’s an overall gain. Improved tooling is good for quality too. And I’ve documented it all better too, so there’s less time spent scratching the head about what comes next!
So the status quo is that I can actually make a keyless in about 2 months from the order (the actual time my process takes to run). I’m still 6 months or so on keyed flutes, but aiming to get it down too. I’ve actually got a small stock of some keyless flutes, and I’d like to be back in the position (pre-Internet) of having stocks of all my popular models. We’ll see …
Doc also asks if I do post-mounted keys. I have done them, but I don’t enjoy it, and so I’ve vowed not to do them any more. It’s not that I see them as unsatisfactory, I just prefer the flute to be more of an entiity than a collection of parts. It’s all in the mind, you know …
Which is not to say I can’t retrofit keys. I have done a few where I’ve grafted blocks on (usually on other maker’s keyless flutes). I doubt if most people could spot where! But for my own flutes, I’d prefer to make a replacement body with the blocks integral.
TerryB comments on pipers fingering. There’s no problem (that I’m aware of - Terry might correct me) with block mounted keys and piper’s fingering - you just mount the blocks further around so they don’t get in the way of the outstretched fingers. That puts the Long F key touch too low for L4, so you do what Nicholson did - bend the keytouch up instead of down.
Maricarac wonders about sending my flutes to Giles Lehart for keying. From memory, Giles does French-style keywork (hardly surprising!) which may not suit everybody. But there’s certainly no reason not to send my or other maker’s keyless flute to Giles or anyone else who will do the kind of keys you want. The important thing is that the player get’s what they need.
Whew, I hope I’m now up to date! Takes sip of Jamo’s, screws up eyes and gingerly presses “Submit”…
Terry
